Analytical Laboratory Results

2023 Analytical Laboratory Results

Once again, we’d like to thank everyone who voted in our annual poll on the previous year’s issues. Your votes help your favorite writers and artists by rewarding them directly and concretely for outstanding work. They help you by giving us a better feel for what you like and don’t like—which helps us know what to give you in the future.

We have six categories: novellas, novelettes, short stories, fact articles, poems, and covers. In each category, we asked you to list your three favorite items, in descending order of preference. Each first place vote counts as three points, second place two, and third place one. The total number of points for each item is divided by the maximum it could have received (if everyone had ranked it 1) and multiplied by 10. The result is the score listed below, on a scale of 0 (nobody voted for it) to 10 (everybody ranked it first). In practice, scores run lower in categories with many entries than in those with only a few. For comparison, the number in parentheses at the head of each category is the average for that category.

NOVELLAS (4.06)

1. “Poison,” Jay Werkheiser & Frank Wu (6.56)
2. “The Tinker and the Timestream,” Carolyn Ives Gilman (5.95)
3. “Flying CARPET,” Rajnar Vajra (4.36)
4. “To Fight the Colossus,” Adam-Troy Castro (3.95)
5. “The Elephant-Maker,” Alec Nevala-Lee (3.54)

NOVELETTES (1.12)

1. “The Deviltree,” Monalisa Foster (2.46)
2. “Apollo in Retrograde,” Rosemary Claire Smith (2.26)
3. “Didicosm,” Greg Egan (2.10)
4. (TIE) “Recruit,” Stephen L. Burns (1.95)
   (TIE) “The House on Infinity Street,” Allen M. Steele (1.95)

SHORT STORIES (0.29)

1. “Blowout,” Wole Talabi (1.85)
2. “Cornflower,” Victoria Navarra (1.74)
3. “The Echo of a Will,” Marie Vibbert (1.28)
4. “Second Sight,” Gray Rinehart (1.18)
5. “An Infestation of Blue,” Wendy N. Wagner (1.13)

FACT ARTICLES 

1. “Life, but not Quite as We Know It,” Christina de la Rocha (January/February 2023)
2. “Fish Kill on the Tanis,” Kevin Walsh (November/December 2023)
3. “The Passenger Pigeon and the Great Filter,” Howard V. Hendrix (March/April 2023)
4. “Astronautical Explanations for ‘Oumuamua,” Duncan Lunan (May/June 2023)
5. “Dune and Superdune,” Kevin Walsh (November/December 2023)

POETRY (3.59)

1. “How to Conquer Gravity,” Mary Turzillo (3.95)
2. “What Xenologists Read,” Mary Soon Lee (3.64)
3. “Object Permanence,” Marissa Lingen (2.36)
4. “The Observer,” Bruce Boston (2.10)
5. “I Dreamt an Alien Was in Love with My Ex-Girlfriend,” Don Raymod (1.49)

COVER (2.28)

1. May/June, by Tomislav Tikulin for “The Elephant Maker” (5.23)
2. January/February, by Eldar Zakirov for “Aleyara’s Descent” (3.23)
3. September/October, by Tomislav Tikulin (2.21)

I can’t pick favorites, but I must admit I’m particularly pleased by the crop of novellas here: I’m not surprised that perennial crowd-pleasers Jay Werkheiser and Frank Wu placed highly, but I’m also glad to see that Carolyn Ives Gilman’s first story with us was recognized as the standout it is, as well as nods for Rajnar Vajra’s final story, the particularly creative Adam-Troy Castro piece, and a thriller that could hold its own with any on the best-seller list from Alec Nevala-Lee.

High placements for newcomers is a pattern we see a few times, next in novelettes, with a first-place showing for first-time Analog author Monalisa Foster’s “The Deviltree,” to say nothing of the other strong showings in the category, including a follow-up to a popular story from Rosemary Claire Smith, a Hard SF Big Idea piece from Greg Egan, and a pair of stories with real heart from Steven L. Burns and Allen M. Steele.

And again, not only does Wole Talabi (an accomplished author, but his first time in Analog) take the top spot in the hyper-competitive short story category, but newer writer Victoria Navarra’s “Cornflower” fares well, too. Those two stories, combined with the other runners-up, makes this a category of heart-string-tuggers, too!

Our fact articles covered the breadth of topics Analog readers have come to expect, but to be honest, I’m not surprised that Marianne J. Dyson’s article is in first place: Analog readers love space, and there aren’t many folks who can write about the space program from such an intimate perspective!

Since AnLab votes are so important in encouraging authors and artists to do their best work and to giving you the kind of magazine you most like to read, we hope to see even more next year. Use our online ballot, email, or “snail mail”! (Remember to be careful to vote in the right category, as listed in the annual index. Sometimes a few votes are wasted by being cast in the wrong category, and those simply can’t be counted. Using our online ballot makes this much less likely.)